the 8th dwarf, sniffy.

I have said it before, but I will say it again - Hope has the best nose EVER. She can be sound asleep, suddenly sit up, sniff the air a few times, and then shoot like a rocket(well, bippitybop rocket) toward the kitchen. She is hysterical.

In other health news, Hope's fecal sample came back positive for whipworms. We are already treating her with Panacur so a couple rounds of that and she should be good. Her blood work had also come back last week - lots of white blood cells and low red blood cells - anemia. We suspected whipworms or cancer. Hopefully it is the one and not the other!

Hope has also been sneezing a lot. We're on day 8 post-shelter so the incubation of a respiratory bug is coming due. I am praying and pleading she doesn't get sick. She seems very off today, having to be coaxed to eat her food. She got a worried Mom thermometer up the butt, though(normal temp). She got a little fresh about that but I told her it was in her best interest. She begged to differ.

For my birthday(today) Hope let me medicate her all by myself. Yup, I held her AND gave her eye drops and oral meds. What a gem.

From earlier today, Dexter and Hope! Dexter had been laying on the couch and Hope snuggled up to him. Most excellent. Our dogs are being super awesome with her - being gentle and respectful.

we had dinner in, now we'll have it out - with hope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cks1HNJHPfA


I am positive that french fries aren't on a recovery diet, but what the hell.

The weekend with Hope has been great. We've had zero snarling, zero muzzle, and all the meds on regular intervals. Things are looking good. She's started sneezing here and there, but I can't tell if it is from excitement or not. It's not chronic and it seems to be around times of food. :) Say a little something she's not getting the dreaded KC.

Dinner with Hope

BippityBop.

Chris thinks how Hope prances around the house is hilarious. I think it is adorable. He calls her "BippityBop" or, alternately, "BoppityBoop". He talks to her with animated voice - the two of them are quite a pair. The whole thing brings me big smiles.

Hope may not be able to see, but she can sure as heck smell and hear. If there's even the slightest bit of a scent of food cooking she is up and off to investigate. She has this cute little whine when she wants something we're eating(or thinks we're eating). She knows how to work us.

Here she is, sound asleep in "the nest".


And here she is, after she heard the fridge open up...



:)

(we talk to the vet tomorrow about the blood work results, will update then)

the big day came.

Today I took Hope into work with me. I work at a veterinary specialty center in New Jersey - Red Bank Veterinary Hospital - that has some of the best and brightest in the veterinary field. We had our first appointment with Dr. Maria Badamo, a general practitioner, and our second with Dr. Michael Ringle, board certified veterinary ophthalmologist.

First - almost everyone thought she was adorable. I forewarned them about her being fresh and everyone was respectful.

Dr. B was great, as was her tech - Tara. It was assumed that the skin issue is either sarcoptic mange(more likely) or Cushings disease(yuck). For that we got a prescription medicated shampoo and a few doses of Revolution to kill the mites. Hope was amazingly calm during most of the exam, other than trying to look at her teeth. Ironic, considering she likes to flash them as much as she does. Her teeth look pretty good and we don't think she is a senior but rather around 7-8 years old. Dr. B did a swab of Hope's ears to see what the chunky gross stuff was that smelled like yeast. Big surprise - yeast! We got a script for ear wash and medicated drops for those.

And drum roll... Hope weighed 5.1lbs!!! We gained! You can still count her ribs but we're going to get there.

Dr. B also aspirated what we're affectionately calling "Hope's meatball" aka mammary tumor. She and Dr C, another GP doctor, felt the margins were pretty clear and removing it should not be a problem. If and when she is under we can have a teeth cleaning done at the same time as long as she isn't having a problem under anesthesia. They did a quick peek under the microscope to see if it was mast cell - it wasn't - but saw something that concerned them and asked the onco doctor to look. He advised it should be sent in to be sure. No answers there.

Tara and I trimmed some more mats and then clipped her nails. There was a dew claw that was a DOOZY. Wow, it was long. Hope wasn't very cooperative for this portion of the visit but thankfully she trusts me more and more so her opinion of me didn't waiver even though I had to squish her head multiple times when she was being fresh. We also drew blood, for which we opted to muzzle her. She was fairly well behaved after some mild gremlin noises. Her poor little body is so fragile she bruised from her aspiration and blood draw. It really amazes me how fragile these little bodies are.

So the basics of the general exam were the itching will get worse before it gets better as the mites die. The ears will clear up with meds and time(mites in those too). 5 prescriptions for the little hot mess.

We then saw Dr Ringle - what an amazing doctor. He was very gentle with her. We opted to muzzle her here, too, but there was nothing really invasive and she was extremely well behaved for this. He said there was no need to really do extensive testing because he could tell she had little to no tear production, no eye infection, and lots of corneal scarring. Basically, she is mostly blind. Sigh. She'll need to be on medication for her eyes for life - artificial tears and cyclosporine.

So the rundown is:

Cyclosporine eye drops - three times a day
Artificial Tears - as often as possible, at least 15 minutes outside of the other eye drops
Revolution - one every two weeks starting on the 26th
Epi-Otic - clean ears twice a day
Mometamaxx - 6-8 drops in both ears twice a day at least 30 minutes after cleaning
Welactin Fish Oil - double down for dose while she gets fixed up
Cephalexin Suspension - 2 mls twice a day, with food
KetoChlor shampoo - 1-2 times a week

We talked about adding a steroid/anti-itch type pill once her bloodwork is back. This might become my second - or third - job. We'll wait to hear on the blood results and her heartworm test, most likely tomorrow.

Onward - cute shots from bath time tonight! You can see her meatball pretty good here.





As one can imagine, this all isn't cheap, but her little personality is really coming through now and it is so worth it.

Still waiting on our B-Naturals.com order. Once it gets here we're going to start the detox and then the real fun begins!

houston, we have a dog!

Today was so much better than yesterday. Hope is really coming around and trusting us more and more.





She allowed me to clip more mats today from her fur. She still wasn't thrilled about the eye drops and the liquid medication but she argued less.



She seeks out our hands for petting and didn't snap(other than med time). Progress!


Tomorrow we have an appointment at the vet - to see both the general practitioner and the eye doctor just to make sure we have the correct meds to help heal those little peepers up quick!



My husband even slipped and said, "Aw, that's cute" about her sitting on a little tea towel for a piece of food. :)

Progress all around!

not exactly as planned.

Today was the day! i scooped hope out of the PSPCA ACCT this morning. Special thanks to jill sweeney and natalie smith for helping facilitate all of it.

Hope - what can you say. so much worse than her pictures ever lead me to believe. Her nails are so long she has trouble walking, her eyes were crusted shut, her ears are full of yeast, her coat was mats, and to top it all of - a DANGLER of a tumor.

I didn't get many, if any, pictures of her in the shelter. Hope was not doing well there and was a little fresh to anyone trying to handle her. We'll take it slow for a few days and let her warm up.

A heartbreaking point of the trip was when she was in the front seat of my car - she rolled and pressed her face into the soft blanket I'd brought for her for at least 10 minutes of driving time. She then stopped, sat, looked up at me, and cried this mournful noise that made my heart hurt. I invited her into my lap with a pat and there she went, curled up in a ball, and slept for the rest of the ride content. She did not, however, want me to pet her. Small steps.







We have eye meds, antibiotics, and derm caps for her issues. It's only about half of what I know she truly needs. We'll schedule the appointment with the vet tomorrow at work.

A few pictures from today, all cellphone shots, sorry.